The 7 Best Healthy Living Apps You Need Now!

November 7, 2016

The holiday season is coming up fast as evidenced by the new Starbucks holiday cups and menu! The season can be quite stressful and make it easy to forget about healthy eating and living habits. Check out my guide to the 7 best healthy living apps below. Tried and tested by yours truly!

Links and additional details are under the infographic! While I might have an iPhone, most of these apps are also available on Android or have a browser specific website.

Track your snacking and meet your nutrition goals with this handy app. MyFitnessPal makes it easy to scan and log your food, water, and workouts, get encouragement from friends, and stay within the guidelines of that new diet you’re trying.

I like that I can scan barcodes to log my foods – this makes the process quick, easy, and perfect for a busy life. You can also search a food to get an idea of it’s nutritional content before you decide to order! Setting calorie goals for each meal helps me keep my snacking in check and pay attention to my water intake. There is also a community feature where you can find your friends and see what they’re up to. I have a few friends who use this and it’s great getting positive feedback for doing a workout or meeting a calorie goal.

The Android version also has nice widgets so you can easily see how close you are to the goal – a nice feature! The basic version does most everything, if you want an ad-free experience or more customization options you can try the premium version. I used to have premium but the free version meets most of my needs.

The app plays nicely with other apps and you can easily set goals. It’s easy to read and use. I really like the Withings Activité Steel because it looks like a sleek designer watch rather than an activity tracker. I personally don’t use the sleep tracking function because I don’t like have something on while I sleep. Although the few times I have it used it, it works pretty well. Overall, the Withings HealthMate is one of my go-to apps.

Price: FREE, although you have to have the accessories for the app to actually track any data.

Need reminders to be mindful? Pacifica helps track your mood, journal what affects these moods, helps you through stressful situations and anxiety attacks, and helps practice gratitude. Not to mention they have a great community feature as well.

This is a newer app for me but by far one of my favorites. Pacifica reminds me to check in with how I’m feeling and track my mood. From there, I can journal what is going on in my life to put me in a good or bad mood, take a moment to reflect on something I’m grateful for, set a goal for the day, or take a moment to meditate. My favorite part of the app are the exercises – there are 23 activities to help calm your mind and relieve anxiety and stress. These activities range from meditations to guided breathing exercises targeted specifically at the things that go on in life.

The app is available for free with limited features. For example, you won’t get all the writing prompts, health tracking ability, or exercises. I bought the premium feature and it has been completely worth it for me. I can eat well and exercise but if my mind is stressed out, I feel tired and lethargic. Taking the time to relax and calm my mind is the best step to living a healthy life.

Price: FREE for some limited features, $5.99 per month or $35.99 per year for Premium.

Ever feel like working out with your favorite celebrity? NTC has workouts from your favorite Olympians, professional athletes, musicians, and much more from the comfort of your own home. Pick your favorite workout between 5 minutes to an hour!

I *LOVE* this app – I’ve been using it for years. It’s easy and conveniently available on your phone, allows you to play your own music, and has an incredible varied database of workouts. Workout vary from 5 – 60 minutes at the right level for your body. Don’t scoff, those 15 minute workouts can really kick your butt!!

Need to relax after a long day but don’t want to head to the gym? Asana Rebel brings you an invigorating practice right in your own home. Asana Rebel also pairs well with your Apple TV so you can put the phone and the emails away and make the most of your practice.

I like that this app is available on Apple TV so I can do Yoga in my living room. They have a huge library of various flows (a premium feature) but they have a limited selection for Free users. Overall, it’s an easy and convenient way to calm and relax your body, mind and soul.

Ever wonder how much sleep you’re actually getting? Pillow tracks your sleep cycle and wakes you up at the appropriate part of your cycle so you can wake up feeling refreshed and ready to take on the day.

I’ve been using this app for the last month and it works really well. I can notice a difference in how easy it is for me to wake up when my alarm goes off during the light sleep stage of my sleep cycle. I always wake up energized and ready to go. The nice part of this app as compared to others is that it lets use choose what you want it to track. Many other sleep cycle apps require you to keep the microphone on while you sleep (which totally creeps me out) but this one gives you the option to avoid tracking that. You could use it as a basic alarm clock if you wanted to.

The app is free but you have to upgrade if you want to track data, have cooler alarms, and keep a dream diary. But you can track data if you sync it to Health Kit like I do so I use the free version.

Price: FREE, one time $4.99 Premium App purchase for the premium version.

7) Apple Health Kit

Need a way to keep all of these awesome apps straight? Apple health kit is already installed on that new iPhone and ready to use. Just give the apps above access to write data to Apple Health and you’ll see all your hard work in one place. Never fear if you aren’t an Apple junkie! Many of these apps also work with Samsung’s S Health.

It’s nice to be able to see all my data in one place. Apple Health comes preloaded on most phones so you don’t even have to put in the effort of downloading it. The best part about it is that you can store your medical history and make certain parts of it available even while your phone is locked. Meaning if you ever are in an emergency situation and unresponsive, first responders can access your medical information such as blood type, medical history, etc to best treat you. For example, if you are a diabetic, this is similar to a diabetes medical tag, just on your phone. It’s always good to have a piece of mind.

Price: FREE and you don’t even have to go through the trouble to download it.

What do you think? Got an app you love that you’d like to share? I want to hear from you! Let me know in the comments below!!